2 Centavos Azemeis

Oliveira de Azeméis is a small industrial municipality in the Aveiro district, and notes like this one emerged from the acute small-change shortage that paralyzed Portuguese commerce during and after the First World War. Municipal chambers across Portugal were authorized — sometimes only informally — to issue cédulas, low-denomination emergency paper, to keep local trade moving when bronze and copper coins effectively vanished from circulation.

These cédulas were never intended to outlast the crisis. Most were redeemed, worn to nothing, or simply discarded once coinage returned. Municipal issues from smaller concelhos like Oliveira de Azeméis survive in far smaller numbers than those from Lisbon or Porto.